Ordnance Survey Ireland
Encyclopedia
National mapping agency
A national mapping agency is an organisation, usually publicly owned, that produces topographic maps and geographic information of a country. Some national mapping agencies also deal with cadastral matters.-List of national mapping agencies:...
of the Republic of Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
and, together with the Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland
Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland
Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland was the official mapping agency of Northern Ireland. The agency ceased to exist separately on 1 April 2008 when it became part of Land and Property Services Northern Ireland, an executive agency of the Northern Ireland Department of Finance and Personnel, along...
(O.S.N.I.), succeeded, after 1922, the Irish operations of the United Kingdom Ordnance Survey
Ordnance Survey
Ordnance Survey , an executive agency and non-ministerial government department of the Government of the United Kingdom, is the national mapping agency for Great Britain, producing maps of Great Britain , and one of the world's largest producers of maps.The name reflects its creation together with...
. It is part of the Public service of the Republic of Ireland
Public service of the Republic of Ireland
The public service of Ireland consists of agencies which, while not formally part of a Department of State, provide services on behalf of the government...
. The OSi have made modern, as well as historic, maps of the state free to view on their website. The OSi is headquartered
Headquarters
Headquarters denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. In the United States, the corporate headquarters represents the entity at the center or the top of a corporation taking full responsibility managing all business activities...
at Mountjoy House in the Phoenix Park
Phoenix Park
Phoenix Park is an urban park in Dublin, Ireland, lying 2–4 km west of the city centre, north of the River Liffey. Its 16 km perimeter wall encloses , one of the largest walled city parks in Europe. It includes large areas of grassland and tree-lined avenues, and since the seventeenth...
in Dublin. Mountjoy House was formerly the headquarters, up until 1922, of the Irish section of the British Ordnance Survey.
Organisation
Under the Ordnance Survey Ireland Act 2001 the status of the former Ordnance Survey of Ireland was changed from an executive agencyExecutive agency
An executive agency, also known as a next-step agency, is a part of a government department that is treated as managerially and budgetarily separate in order to carry out some part of the executive functions of the United Kingdom government, Scottish Government, Welsh Assembly or Northern Ireland...
of the Department of Finance to a State Agency called Ordnance Survey Ireland, and ceased to be part of the Civil service of the Republic of Ireland
Civil service of the Republic of Ireland
The Civil Service of Ireland is the collective term for the permanent staff of the Departments of State and certain State Agencies who advise and work for the Government of Ireland. It consists of two broad components, the Civil Service of the Government and the Civil Service of the State...
. OSi is now an autonomous agency, with a remit to cover its costs of operation from its sales of data and derived products, which has, sometimes raised concerns about the mixing of public responsibilities with commercial imperatives. It employs 320 staff located in Dublin’s Phoenix Park
Phoenix Park
Phoenix Park is an urban park in Dublin, Ireland, lying 2–4 km west of the city centre, north of the River Liffey. Its 16 km perimeter wall encloses , one of the largest walled city parks in Europe. It includes large areas of grassland and tree-lined avenues, and since the seventeenth...
and in six regional offices in Cork, Ennis, Kilkenny, Longford, Sligo and Tuam. OSI had sales in 2010 of € 20.3 million.
The body is governed by a Board appointed by the Minister for Finance.
Products
The most prominent consumer publications of OSi are the "Dublin City and District Street Guide", an atlas of Dublin city, and the "Complete Road Atlas of Ireland" which it publishes in co-operation with Land and Property Services Northern Ireland (formerly the Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland). The board also publishes (jointly with OSNI) a series of 1:50000 maps of the entire island known as the "Discovery Series" and a series of 1:25000 maps of places of interest (such as the Aran IslandsAran Islands
The Aran Islands or The Arans are a group of three islands located at the mouth of Galway Bay, on the west coast of Ireland. They constitute the barony of Aran in County Galway, Ireland...
and Killarney
Killarney
Killarney is a town in County Kerry, southwestern Ireland. The town is located north of the MacGillicuddy Reeks, on the northeastern shore of the Lough Lein/Leane which are part of Killarney National Park. The town and its surrounding region are home to St...
national park) and the Geology of Ireland.
History
The Irish Survey was established in 1824, along similar lines to the Ordnance SurveyOrdnance Survey
Ordnance Survey , an executive agency and non-ministerial government department of the Government of the United Kingdom, is the national mapping agency for Great Britain, producing maps of Great Britain , and one of the world's largest producers of maps.The name reflects its creation together with...
in Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
, to provide a highly detailed (1:10560, 6 inches to 1 mile) survey of the whole of the island of Ireland, a key element in the process of equalising local taxation.
From 1825-46, teams of surveyors, led by officers of the Royal Engineers
Royal Engineers
The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers , and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army....
and men from the ranks of the Royal Sappers and Miners, traversed Ireland, creating a unique record of a landscape undergoing rapid transformation. The resulting maps, which many consider beautiful, (primarily at 6″ scale, with greater detail for urban areas, to an extreme extent in Dublin) portrayed the country in a degree of detail never attempted before, and when the survey of the whole country was completed in 1846, it was a world first. Both the maps and surveying were executed to a the high degree of engineering excellence available at the time, using triangulation and with the help of tools developed for the project, most notably the strong "limelight." The concrete triangulation posts built on the summits of many Irish mountains can still be seen to this day.
The Engineer officers in charge of the operation were Lt-Colonel Thomas Colby
Thomas Frederick Colby
Thomas Frederick Colby , a British major-general and director of the Ordnance Survey , was born at St. Margaret's, Rochester, Kent, England, as a member of a South Wales family. Entering the Royal Engineers he overcame the loss of one hand in a shooting accident to begin in 1802 a lifelong...
, a long-serving Director-General of the Ordnance Survey
Ordnance Survey
Ordnance Survey , an executive agency and non-ministerial government department of the Government of the United Kingdom, is the national mapping agency for Great Britain, producing maps of Great Britain , and one of the world's largest producers of maps.The name reflects its creation together with...
, and Lieutenant Thomas Larcom
Thomas Larcom
Major-General Sir Thomas Aiskew Larcom, 1st Baronet PC FRS was a leading official in the early Irish Ordnance Survey that started in 1824...
. They were assisted by George Petrie, who headed the Survey's Topographical Department which employed the likes of John O'Donovan
John O'Donovan (scholar)
John O'Donovan , from Atateemore, in the parish of Kilcolumb, County Kilkenny, and educated at Hunt's Academy, Waterford, was an Irish language scholar from Ireland.-Life:...
and Eugene O'Curry
Eugene O'Curry
-Life:He was born at Doonaha, near Carrigaholt, County Clare, the son of Eoghan Ó Comhraí, a farmer, and his wife Cáit. Eoghan had spent some time as a travelling pedlar and had developed an interest in Irish folklore and music. Unusually for someone of his background, he appears to have been...
in scholarly research into placenames. Captain J.E. Portlock
Joseph Ellison Portlock
Major-General Joseph Ellison Portlock was born at Gosport and was a British geologist and soldier, the only son of Nathaniel Portlock, and a captain in the Royal Navy....
compiled extensive information on agricultural produce and natural history, particularly geology.
This "mapping scheme" provided numerous opportunities for employment to the native Irish people, both as skilled or semi-skilled fieldwork labourers and as clerks in the subsidiary Memoir project that was designed both to illustrate and complement the maps by providing hard data on the social and productive worth of the country.
The total cost of the Irish Survey was £860,000.
The original survey was later revisited and revised maps issued on a number of occasions. All of these historical maps (at least up to 1922) are in the public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
and while the originals can be hard to find, they can be freely reproduced.
The British Ordnance Survey ceased to map Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
just before Partition
Partition of Ireland
The partition of Ireland was the division of the island of Ireland into two distinct territories, now Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland . Partition occurred when the British Parliament passed the Government of Ireland Act 1920...
in 1922. The new Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland
Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland
Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland was the official mapping agency of Northern Ireland. The agency ceased to exist separately on 1 April 2008 when it became part of Land and Property Services Northern Ireland, an executive agency of the Northern Ireland Department of Finance and Personnel, along...
(O.S.N.I.) officially came into existence on January 1, 1922, while the new Ordnance Survey of Ireland (O.S.I.) came into being slightly later, on April 1, 1922
OSI was initially part of the army under the Department of Defence. All staff employed were military until the 1970s when the first civilian employees were recruited.
In more recent times, the Ordnance Survey of Ireland replaced traditional ground surveying with mapping based primarily on aerial photography. It has also worked with An Post
An Post
An Post is the State-owned provider of postal services in the Republic of Ireland. An Post provides a universal postal service to all parts of the country as a member of the Universal Postal Union...
to gather and structure geographic data.
In drama
The Ordnance Survey of Ireland carried out between the years 1825 and 1846 is main focus of the 1981 play by Brian FrielBrian Friel
Brian Friel is an Irish dramatist, author and director of the Field Day Theatre Company. He is considered to be the greatest living English-language dramatist, hailed by the English-speaking world as an "Irish Chekhov" and "the universally accented voice of Ireland"...
, Translations
Translations
Translations is a three-act play by Irish playwright Brian Friel written in 1980. It is set in Baile Beag , a small village at the heart of 19th century agricultural Ireland...
. The primary theme is the inscription of place names in an anglicised form, using a phonetic rendering for British
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
Anglophone
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
ears of an approximate Gaelic
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
pronunciation.